


when you hold me tight, and I let go

by Salambo06



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Confessions, Kissing, M/M, New Relationship, lying in bed, serious talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 06:13:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12205461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salambo06/pseuds/Salambo06
Summary: “What is it?” John whispers, a frown on his face now.“Do you think we’ll still be doing this in thirty years?”“What?” John says, something close to a laugh escaping him, “Lying in bed completely clothed?”





	when you hold me tight, and I let go

**Author's Note:**

> This is for xtina who once said that this was her dream fic prompt, I hope you'll like it <3
> 
> Thank you to [Heather](http://snogbox1.tumblr.com/) for her job as a beta !  
> Enjoy,  
> Pauline.

 

 

> _Please, for just one night, will you lay down next to me, we can leave our clothes on, we can stay all buttoned._
> 
>         -   **Richard Silken**

 

 

“I’m scared.”

Sherlock opens his eyes. John is still lying on his side, still fully clothed, still staring right at him. Neither of them move for a long moment, only the sound of their breathing echoing through the room, and Sherlock tries to remember the last time he felt as if it was all slipping through his fingers.

“No”, John murmurs, lowering his head to the pillow. “I’m terrified.”

The words get stuck in his throat and his voice sounds hoarse even to his own ears when Sherlock finally manages to ask, “Of me?”

John’s eyes flutter closed as he nods, the sound of his head rubbing against the pillow covering Sherlock’s sharp inhale. He forces himself not to flee, not to run away once again. John looks back at him, something close to determination settling over his face, and Sherlock finds there the courage to remain where he is.

“More of us,” John breathes, glancing down at the distance between them, and Sherlock wonders if they’ll ever manage to cross these last few centimeters. “Of what we once were, and how we managed to let it crumble around us.”

Sherlock represses a shiver, “Were we really anything at all?”

“Of course we are,” John replies, looking back up sharply at him. “You know perfectly well you’re my best fri-”

“Don’t,” Sherlock cuts him off, an ache spreading throughout his chest.

John licks his lower lip, the hand at his side tightening into a fist, “Are we not friends anymore, then?”

“I like to think it’s a bit more complicated than that,” Sherlock replies, challenging John to contradict him silently. “Yes, there was a time when I believed I had finally found a friend in you, but I’ve grown to realise Lestrade or even Mrs. Hudson had already filled that role long before you came into the picture.”

John is breathing heavily now, and Sherlock focuses on the angry lines slowly forming on his face. He fights back a smile.

“What I felt, no, feel, when it comes to you is, and has always been, far from simple friendship, John.”

John rolls to his back, eyes now fixed on the ceiling. _He’s beautiful_ , Sherlock thinks, but remains silent.

“Do you regret kissing me?”

The question hangs in the air for what could be an eternity. A thousand different replies rush through Sherlock’s head, but none breach his lips.

“I don’t,” John answers for him. “I’m fucking terrified of what it means, but I don’t regret it. The truth is, I’ve been thinking about that kiss for so long that it felt absolutely amazing, even more than I ever imagined, and if you’d only ask me, I’d be kissing you again right now.”

Sherlock remembers to breathe.

“But you’re scared.”

John faces him again, “From the moment I met you, Sherlock, you have been so brilliant, so clever, so bloody beautiful, and even when I dared to think that maybe, maybe, you felt just as desperate for more as I did, I couldn’t let myself believe that I could ever be enough for you.”

“That’s ri-”

“Stop,” John says, shaking his head. “I know what you’re going to say, and it’s not what I need, or even want, to hear right now.”

Sherlock nods, swallowing back another reply.

“It might sound stupid to you,” John continues, eyes tracing from him to the nightstand to the door and back. “But I can’t help it. Even now, I look at you and I can’t stop wondering what you must think of me. After everything that happened, after Mary and the constant stream of failed relationships. How can I ever make you feel secured and lo-” John inhales deeply, and Sherlock finds himself hanging to his next word. “And loved.”

Sherlock wonders if someday, ten, twenty, thirty years from now, he’ll be able to make him understand just how far from ordinary he is. John’s hand closes around his wrist, a gentle stroke of his thumb making Sherlock shiver. He smiles.

“What is it?” John whispers, a frown on his face now.

“Do you think we’ll still be doing this in thirty years?”

“What?” John says, something close to a laugh escaping him, “Lying in bed completely clothed?”

A wrinkle comes alive in the corner of John’s eyes, the echo of his smile slowly blooming on his lips, and Sherlock’s finger aches to reach out, to touch, to feel. _Fully clothed or not, awake or not, laughing or not. It doesn’t matter. Just us, in our bed_. John’s laughter dies off, his grip tightening around Sherlock’s wrist. “Yes,” he finally breathes out, the words almost too quiet.

Silence, heavy but still somehow comfortable, settles between them once more. Sherlock waits. Talking about a future neither of them can properly assure is, after all, the most serious conversation they’ve managed to share in months - years, to be entirely honest, and if it means that this time silence has to be the answer, then Sherlock is going to accept it as it is.

“I’m a broken man, Sherlock,” John sighs, fingers falling from Sherlock’s skin to the bed.

“You were a broken man when I met you,” Sherlock replies, finding it hard to stop himself from meeting John’s hand in the middle again. “It didn’t stop me from falling in love with you.”

A chuckle breaches John’s lips before he can prevent it.

“That was a lifetime ago,” John murmurs, not meeting his eyes. “So much happened in between. We’ve hurt each other in so many ways. I broke you, Sherlock. I used a morning suit and a waltz, and hurt you.”

“I used a cellphone and a roof, and hurt you,” Sherlock replies, hating how his own body remains him of all the places John had left scars on, visible and not. “But this morning, you used your hands and your lips and kissed me, John, and I’d rather focus on that than anything else.”

John shakes his head, shutting his eyes, “That’s also what I’m afraid of, right there. You can’t just delete all the bad things, and decide it didn’t happened.”

Sherlock reaches for him before he can think twice about it, one hand coming to settle in the crook of John’s neck, fingertips brushing hair. “I haven’t deleted a single thing when it comes to you, John. I’ve kept it all, the bad and the good. The times when I could barely hold back from pulling you into my arms, and the times when I found myself thinking maybe it would have been better if I had never met you. I’ve kept it all, right here, and I don’t plan on ever forgetting about it.”

“Why?” John asks in a whisper. “Why would you want to remember it all when it means we can never move past it?”

“I refuse to think we can’t,” Sherlock replies. John is almost close enough for their breath to mix between them. “Yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, that’s when I thought that maybe I should give up. That maybe time had finally caught up to us, and that it was too late to do anything about it. That we would share a home but never a bed, and I was ready to accept it because it meant that I would still grow old with you and get to share a lifetime with you.” He shifts closer, brings John’s forehead to his. “But you kissed me.”

“I kissed you,” John breathes out slowly, the words ghosting against Sherlock’s lips.

“I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, and I’m fairly sure people aren’t supposed to lie fully clothed in bed with the person they desire, but I trust you to tell me, to show me,” Sherlock confesses, the ache in his chest giving space to something much warmer. “I’m just as scared, because I could ruin this all in less than a second. Could be ruining it all already.”

John’s hand slides up his side, coming to rest where neck meets shoulder, and Sherlock lets him brush their lips together softly.

“You’re not,” he whispers, another shift of their bodies bringing them closer together. “You won’t.”

“Neither of us can be sure of that,” Sherlock replies, repressing a shiver. “Just like I can’t promise that I won’t hurt you again, because sometimes I’m going to run after a suspect without telling you, and sometimes you’ll get angry and storm out after choosing the wrong words to express yourself.”

John pulls away just enough to look at him, studying him for a long moment, and Sherlock lets him. He closes his eyes, hoping John can find what he’s looking for in the frown between his eyebrows or the trembling of his lower lip.

“Then let’s not make any promises.” John is smiling when Sherlock’s eyes flutter open again. “Let’s decide that we’re going to do our best, that yes, we’re going to be scared at first but that we’re trying to work on it and maybe even learn to hold on to that fear. Let’s decide that we’re going to grow old in the same home, in the same bed, and still lie there fully clothed when it’s too hard to keep it all inside again.”

Sherlock feels his own lips curl into a smile, feeling John’s heartbeat under his fingers and finding it pounding just as hard  as his.

“Hold on to that fear,” Sherlock repeats softly.

John nods, pulling him back closer, “Yes. But more importantly, holding on to each other.”

Sherlock searches for something to say, something that will make John understand if he could do anything to prevent the both of them ever leaving this bed, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second. But there are John’s lips pressed against his own, and the fear of never having enough time to catalogue each and every point of contact slowly fading away. John is kissing him, and Sherlock kisses back with the certainty that he’ll be doing so again in a few seconds.

At the end of the bed, two pairs of socked feet find each other.  


End file.
